Ten things we learned this week

Ten things we learned this week

It's been a busy few days here on DPReview.com, with new products being released in both the camera and mobile industries, news, previews and of course plenty of in-depth reviews still in progress. In this short article we look back at some of the things we've learned over the past week or so, both from the industry and from you, our readers. Click through to see more.

I cast a vote for dumping all editorial space dedicated to phones and replace this sector with Pro only camera's.

Medium format, Mono Rail, Panoramic and the like.

On the other hand, if obtaining the best result and reviewing the good cameras available to us is not the focus of DPR any more, .... Perhaps a name change is in order, .... "Diabolical Phone Results" or something that describes the real content.Then we photographers will simply usher the good old DPR into fond memory and seek like minded serious photographers elsewhere.

'Some of you are allergic to ApplesApple's (approximately) annual product refresh cycle for the iPhone just came around, and as some of the world's most popular cameras, we've been giving the newest iphone, the iPhone 5s, a fair amount of coverage both on dpreview.com and connect. Although we stand by what we've published, a lot of you seem to be allergic to Apples, and you've been telling us so loudly and clearly in your comments.

We'll still publish smartphone content on dpreview occasionally, where there's a good photography-related argument for doing so but if you really don't like seeing this sort of content on our homepage."

For good time and bad times, that word is always there.. always on the news.

Sick and tired of this... Can't you just put Smartphone instead of that word?

A phone with mediocre camera that received all attentions and publicity is the worst thing that ever happened in the word of Photography.

Okay, I clicked through the article and just read the headlines and the first two sentences of each paragraph. I skim, it's what I do best.

I think we're missing one or two items. Didn't we learn anything about Adobe and/or subscription models? Like maybe people hate them? Or maybe people like to say they hate them but they really like them?

I think this article is incomplete without some treatment of this important topic.

EDIT: Oh, it's ten things we learned THIS WEEK. Maybe that was in last week's article...

Not allergic to Apple. Not even allergic to smartphones. But I AM allergic to have what is supposed to be a camera site wasting time and resources on both when you can't keep up with reviewing real cameras.

There are plenty of cell phone review sites. You don't need to be another one. Stick to what your many thousands of readers came here for.

Same here... I didn't read this article. I don't click a bunch of pages to read tiny bits of information on any website. A sad tactic that seems to be gaining popularity. This trend would go away if no one would bother to read these types of articles.

I don't mind reviews about cellphones, what I do mind is that you seem to be gving unbalanced reviews when it comes to iphones like if you were being paid by apple. However I do like iphones, yes they are good, but please stop being FANBOYISH in your reviews of them, be FACTUAL don't become PROMOTIONAL

Smart phones did not take over for low end compacts, they created a whole new catagory below low end compacts. They created a cataogory of camera for people whose interest in photography is so low that carrying even a low end compact camera is too much of a bother...which turns out to be most of the people who owned low end compacts! They say that the best camera is the one you have with you, but I've found that people who own low end cameras, as tiny as they are, often do not bring their cameras with them! But people who own bulky DSLRs are more likely to drag their cameras with them everywhere they go. For the average person, the cell phone camera means not having to think about bringing their camera because it's built into the phone. So in that regard the cell phone camera is better, only because they have it with them.

In his book 'The inmates are running the asylum' Alan Cooper points out that once we put a computer in something, the computer takes over and it now about the User Interface. Digital cameras in traditional SLR bodies still end up being about the software and the UI, no matter the hardware. The reality is that most photography is really about Photoshop even for professionals. Digital photography is quite distinct from film photography as an art medium and arguments over how close the former can come to emulating the latter are missing the point.

My phone may not have the resolution of my digital camera, nor the lens power, and the argument about carrying the phone rather than a 'real' camera is only relevant to teenagers who treat facebook as a photographic life journal - ha ha . The reality is that my phone has REAL TIME processing and editing that allows me to produce ART, as opposed to 'accurate record'.

So why are you taking photographs if they are not going to be interesting, engaging and pleasing to the eye?

Right. You are an industrial photographer, an astronomer, a biologist, a police forensic photographer, or perhaps you are taking photographs with a military spy satellite. Accurate image is what counts, not art. And if you are in that class then you are not going to be using a smartphone camera anyway.

The old (classic) design style of Olympus, Nikon and Canon has gone too. But we do have fully featured boxes with loads of buttons to press and lots of displays to goggle at. Pity most of these 'features' are of little value when taking photos.

@ Groucher; That's not really a fair assessment to say that most of those features have little value when taking pictures. These cameras are packed full of usefull features. Which ones you use depends upon your needs, skill level and approach to photography. I always work from RAW files, so picture styles, color balance bracketing and many other automatic functions are useless to me, but to other photographers, those features might be very uselful. Those companies already make a range of cameras to meet the needs of different kinds of photographers. There's no harm in including those features you might not use, in fact it would be more costly to build more models to meet the specific needs of individual photographers than to include as many features as possible into fewer models.

"with 'Pentax' written on the front, and 'Ricoh' on the back, we're still not entirely sure what to actually call it."...well, my Pentax LX has 'Pentax' written on the front and 'Asahi opt. co.' written on the back. And we all call it Pentax!

Ricoh is just reminding everyone they own Pentax. But it is still a Pentax. A Pentax K-3 made by somebody in the Philippines for Ricoh Imaging Corporation. Once they put Ricoh upfront, Pentax will be dead (and Ricoh will soon follow).

"Some of you are allergic to Apples" Not what I have noticed, even as an Apple user. Many more people seem to be allergic to "Apple" being used when the applicable term is Smartphone or when other formats already do some of the things touted as breakthroughs by Apple. (And even do them better). Frankly, I am more interested in upgrading to the Samsung Note 3 than the next generation of my iPhone, and I even prefer the camera in it.

"when other formats already do some of the things touted as breakthroughs by Apple." To often when ppl say "This is the best I know of" they mean "This is the only thing I know of". Not recognizing breakthrough being done "on the other side of the fence" is fairly common around here. 2nd most common thing here are those who have used a hammer for their whole life, and gets a screwdriver in their hands, tries it for an hour and complains that it doesn't do the job. (please replace hammer and screwdriver for whatever might suit you)

I agree completely. I hate these clickbait "list" articles. Apart from which, this is about the 4th webpage I visit regularly that does this. BBC even uses the same title. I don't mind the idea, but it's not exactly fresh.

Nobody should have duct tape in their bag. When you try to remove it, it either damages what is was sticking to or leaves a horrible goo behind. Considerate photographers use gaffer tape. Its very strong but not as aggressive as Duct tape..

some people say they prefer gaffers tapes because they are easier to remove. that's not my problem. not a big one. I'm more for the base that cloth/paper reflect light less than vinyl. also gaffers tapes are strong enough for most of binding (vinyl binds better when stretched).

I use vinyl tapes with easy to recognize color (not too bright red or green) and may cover with gaffers tape for serious work.

No major Sony DSLRs are in the pipeline (so far as I know). I just checked the last newsletter and yes, indeed, it did say Sony when it should have said 'Nikon'. Sorry about that. That'll teach me for writing those things late in the evening....

Sony doesn't make dslrs they make SLT's Since there is apparently a hopefully new Sony 24mp sensor in the K-3 (Ricoh confirmed it is a Sony sensor, but not whether it is a new one or the one from the A77) a a78 and a Nex-7n are due.

Im also quite curious about that 1/160 issue. I know this from first hand, but I have camera which is ages old (not new), but with IBIS too.My problematic speed is 1/25 everything under is fine, everything over too. My guess is that it might be related either to shutter shock, or some sync frequency rate (IBIS probably vibrates at certain frequency, that frequency might be somehow related to this, just idea).

Again, not a fan of having to click "next" for every single item on the list. Hate that design, hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. (By the way, I notice that the same ads remain, so what's the point?)

"Shutter shock" on the Olympus E-5--a lot of Olympus users have complained about that, and despite the great images the E-PL1 and E-PM1 were capable of, it, along with the fact that it took Olympus forever to improve their sensors, is why I moved to Sony NEX via C3. I've never noticed the shutter shock problem when using it, & its sensor was way ahead of the older m4/3rds models, the newer m4/3rds models cost much more since it took them so long to get the newer sensor.

I was about to read this article, then subconsciously trying to procrastinate the click click clickfest, I jumped down here to see if anybody had written anything interesting that would not require a reload and that lag for the ads.

I agree with you. In fact, I agree so much, I think I'll just skip the article. Ads here take too long to load, and surely I can find something better to do with my Friday evening.

The thing is with Apple :) and mobile phones in general is having high megapixel cameras on them as gimmicks sells the phones to gain the phone contracts from people, which earns the phone companies a pretty penny or two, and saying that mobile phone users are competing with DSLR sales maybe a fallacy......this has no doubt been said before so thought I'd say it again ;).......sorry.

Wow...it'd be nice to have a list of all the commenters who suggested duct tape, because I wouldn't want that awful, messy, residue-shedding stuff anywhere near my camera bag. I'm not sure I'd trust someone who suggested using duct tape on any photo equipment that is not an actual duct.

Really BAD idea. Duct tape will leave sticky residue all over anything you put it on.GAFFER'S tape Looks the same but is entirely different.Trust an old Pro on this.Gaffer's tape IS the real deal.Any good film supply house or camera store will have plenty of Gagger's Tape onhandJohn Sharpe/Sharpeshots

Not really, aliasing is going to be present on anything that uses digital sampling. That's just the way sampling works.

There's an old maxim in the world of 3D modeling & animation: higher resolution is not a substitute for anti-aliasing, and anti-aliasing is not a substitute for higher resolution. I wonder how long it will take photographers to figure that out...

pixel size should be at least smaller than the first radius of smallest Airy disk a best lens can deliver. a best lens may be a perfect f/2.8 for 35mm format (like 50/1.4 stopped down), or < 1 micron pixel (stacked RGB, about 0.7 micron for Bayer).